After several months of working with multiple schools and colleges U-M, the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute recently launched — and is accepting applications to — a new Undergraduate Sustainability Scholars Program.

Each year, this competitive program will accept 25 high-performing undergraduate students, who will pursue a 10-credit series of interdisciplinary courses focused on sustainability. After successful completion of the program, students will receive a “Sustainability Scholars” certificate from the Graham Institute to acknowledge their achievement. Upon graduation, they also will receive a special notation on their U-M transcripts designating this scholastic accomplishment. (The latter is limited to students from home academic units that have authorized the Registrar’s Office to make the notation.)

“The Graham Institute mission centers on fostering multi-disciplinary approaches to sustainability,” says Don Scavia, director of the Graham Institute and special counsel to the U-M president on sustainability. “The Graham Institute’s new Undergraduate Sustainability Scholars Program is yet another way we are fulfilling that mission here at the university.”

U-M students apply to the program during their sophomore year for participation beginning in their junior year. The application deadline for students to participate starting with the 2010 Fall Term is March 25.

Academic requirements focus on four key components:

• A one-credit Sustainability Scholars Seminar to prepare for the program.

• A three-credit project-based course called Sustainability & the Campus.

• An approved, three-credit elective course that focuses on sustainability.

• A three-credit, place-based course sponsored by the Graham Institute, such as Sustainability Challenges & Opportunities in East Africa at the Mpala wildlife conservancy in Kenya (among others).